


opened up the window (in flu enza)

by StormySkiesAhead



Series: pestilence loves war (more than any other) [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: 1918 Influenza Pandemic, 1918 flu pandemic, 1918 flu was nasty, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, But the angsty kind, Gen, Influenza, Light Angst, Minor Character Death, Pandemics, People die y'all, There is no warning that says "mildly graphic depictions of flu", almost nobody in star wars is immune to the 1918 flu, and they pay for it dearly, bc they were originally for a project a lot like this one and i repurposed them for that, get your flu shot folks, i guess this is a sickfic?, i wrote this all in one go in like four hours, kind of, mild mentions of characters i also theoretically use in the thunder rumbles, nobody y'all would already care about but still, seriously though it's teen and up for a reason, so here's mine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:47:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21714016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormySkiesAhead/pseuds/StormySkiesAhead
Summary: They didn't mean to dig it up. They didn't mean to be caught unawares. But nobody has had it for hundreds of years- how could they know?The brothers call it Hollow. The civillians call her Enza. Those who remember don't bother with a proper name. They just call it H1N1, and they remember what it means.
Series: pestilence loves war (more than any other) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1566916
Comments: 21
Kudos: 91





	opened up the window (in flu enza)

**Author's Note:**

> This, unlike practically anything else I've ever written, is actually wholly unrelated to everything else- Mordechai and Keziah Tavi were originally supposed to be used for a SW crossover, and Mordechai was originally the younger sibling (as can be noted in the OG draft of The Thunder Rumbles when he was introduced as younger). Literally you do not have to know who he is he's just a Jedi Master who knows what influenza is.  
> Also, the title's from a creepy as hell old nursery rhyme.

They didn’t mean to. Honest.

Mint clutches his captain’s hand to his chest, looking blearily up through the fever, and promises, with all that he can, that they didn’t mean to, that they didn’t know, that it’s _not their fault_ -

The Captain shushes, nods. The Commander is in the corner, far away, the thin braid over her shoulder looking like a snake and the thick white mask around her face like a hand.

The brothers can’t risk her getting sick. The General is already sick. Hundreds of brothers, too. The bodies are starting to pile up- Mint knows, he’d seen them before he’d collapsed only hours ago. They aren’t the first- he knows that well enough. Last he’d heard, the _Perseverance_ had gone into lockdown and had barred any other ship from entering the space around them (according to the General, before they’d gone down, their Commander had radioed that theirs was having a nervous breakdown), the _Negotiator_ ’s admiral was down with it and General Kenobi was in quarantine.

Mint wishes they were wise enough to put their forces in quarantine when they’d returned from on-planet. If they had been, he wouldn’t be drowning in his own body, hacking coughs, and fighting the fever threatening to take over his head.

The _Perseverance_ ’s General must have been one of the smart ones, or one of the old ones. Mint envies the 123rd at this moment- a General that would shut down an entire system just to keep the people safe, who would shut themselves out of the war effort to keep bodies off the floor- it’s commendable.

The Captain becomes some great beast for a moment, white with black spots and blue eyes, and Mint giggles, before hacking, again.

“Sir,” he rasps, “Take care of the kid. The General might be lost- Force knows most of the rest of us are going to be- but the kid’s not sick.”

He needs to take a deep gulp of water to keep himself from hacking again, and _how can he be thirsty when he’s needed a pump in his lungs just to stop them from filling-_

“Not yet, any- you. Make sure- doesn’t happ-en,” Mint manages to get out.

“We’re working on it. Commander, get to quarantine.”

The Commander’s wide eyes harden, and she shakes her head. The muffled noise sounds like ‘not leaving’.

Mint sits up, as best he can, and glares at her.

“We are dying,” he says, “but you- _we need you_ to stay alive. As long as you’re not sick, the men have _hope_ . We’re going to need that, going forwards. We’re going to need _you._ ”

He’s surprised at how lucid he feels and how little he rasps and how strong he feels.

It shouldn’t be that much of a surprise, then, that he dies only hours later.

In the corner of an isolation room, where there’s enough emergency rations to wait out half a decade, for one person, at least, and a glass window and a speaker through which she can speak with her men, where there’s an array of hundreds of little potted plants so the air is fresh and not recycled, Ahsoka Tano cries.

In the end, she will be the only person on the ship that hasn’t felt the tightness in her lungs.

* * *

Cody wants an enemy he can _fight._ Right now, with the Admiral laid up in bed with the same thing half his brothers have and with the General shoved into an isolation room as far from the troops as they can manage him, he feels powerless. Cody finds himself longing for the days when they were on Geonosis, where their great Sickness was just brain worms, where their enemy was a specific person and not their own hacking coughs and saliva.

They still don’t know where it came from, not really. There are suspicions, of course- there’s the common understanding that it must have passed between ships on a medical transport, that they’ve gotten far too used to other signs, to wicked and, more importantly, _noticeable_ diseases that one that doesn’t even show up for a week or so hadn’t been much of a pressure.

Cody can feel the tightness creeping into his chest, can feel how it’s hard to breathe. He was laid up for days, at first, but it’s only just beginning to subside- right as the rest of his brothers are getting sicker and sicker. They’ve become a quarantine ship of sorts. Cody’s glad for one thing, though- this ship may hijack their bodies, and leave something empty in their heads (or, at least, in his head) afterwards, but it doesn’t twist their minds for some nefarious purpose. It’s a disease, sure, but it’s a non-discriminatory one. He finds himself mildly respecting that. It’s nice to not be fodder for some brain worms. Cody shudders. _Brain worms._

The General is still uninfected, and Cody’s snapping out of his own fever. They can do this. Probably. Cody can’t ignore the rasping breaths of his men, can’t ignore the fact that the ones that come back from their bouts with the disease have deep hollows under their eyes and shallow lungs, can’t ignore the fact that it may not have killed them but it’s sucked the life out of them all all the same.

And then, there are the bodies. Cody ignores the bile that rises in his throat at the thought of the stacks of corpses that keep rising higher and higher in the morgue.

Blue corpses. Brothers who’d died young, who’d died too young. Blue from drowning on land, drowning in their own bodies, when they couldn’t do anything to stop what had taken them from them, and Cody can’t- and Cody can’t-

“Commander, are you alright?”

Ah. Right. The window for the General’s isolation room opens up into here. If Cody wasn’t worried for the fact that he might still be infectious, he’d crawl in their with him and sob into the General’s hair until his tears ran out. The General raises a hand to the window.

“You can talk to me. It’s not like I’m useful for much else at the moment.”

“You know why we locked you in there,” Cody replies dryly, and the General returns to hugging one of the potted plants close to him. It’s a rather nice room, full of more green than there is on the rest of the ship. Shame what it entails.

“I very much do, and I thank you for your concern, Commander, but I do believe we need to discuss the well-being of the men at this moment, not my continued imprisonment.”

Cody lets out a strained chuckle, then does as his General says. Obi-Wan Kenobi’s already pale face grows paler at the news.

* * *

The thing is, it really was an accident. Well, not really. Terra, a human planet and arguably the home planet of the human species (though not of humanity- the Coruscanti argue that Terra achieved space-travel too late for that, originally descended from abducted Terrans they may be), had absolutely been an intentional battleground, and while the men of the 311th had not hoped to die there, they still _did_ . And the information had needed to be buried, so they could come back for it later, and the permafrost had been so _deep_ , but it had been a graveyard, somewhere that had already had markers, and a few warnings in a language that none of them could read (far away, an old scholar hisses “Norwegian” under their breath), and so they hadn’t thought much of it when they’d hit a body while they were digging. If they could have read the signs, perhaps they would have seen _Beware, traveler, to disturb these corpses is to invite death into your household_. Or perhaps they would have seen the far more recognizable word- or, well, the word that would become more recognizable again afterwards, the word that would have struck fear into the heart of even the boldest graverobber when it was written.

Orin is the only one of their squadron to look backwards, when they leave the graveyard, information in tow. On the fence, in plain Basic, the most recent of the messages, reads _Abandon all hope, ye who enter here._

He doesn’t know what they mean, by that. Perhaps they thought it was haunted, when they left. Several Terrans seem to have that superstition- the ones that they come across, skittish from the hardships of their most recent Ice Age, warn of death creeping through the ice, of legends of monsters that steal the breath of grown men deep in snow caves. Orin is the only one in his squadron that doesn’t ignore those warnings. He stays away from the bodies, sits alone in his bunk- perhaps, maybe, just maybe, this is what allows him to survive. Especially after the first body among his brothers drops two weeks later, deep blue and choking and sightless. It spreads around like fire on alcohol, catching from person to person. A brother along the way calls it the ‘Holovid’, from how frequently it’s shared, and from then on, it’s called ‘Holo’ amongst the brothers, shifting to ‘Hollow’ as they take in the sunken cheeks and empty eyes of the brothers who survive it, Orin among them. The morgue fills, and the corpses pile higher, and those of them on the _Icebreaker_ (and isn’t that a fitting name, Orin thinks once while in the depth of fever- he’s sure those Terrans were right, that this is a curse because they broke the wrong ice and let the demons out) sit in quarantine.

The third day of their quarantine, they learn they’re too late. Whatever this is- and none of them know, that much is for sure, because if they’d known then their General _wouldn’t have died of it_ \- it has already spread.

“It’s our fault,” Orin sobs quietly, when he hears, “It’s all our fault. We cursed the army.”

It’s not a curse, but it sure feels like one. But if it had been a curse, perhaps all of those worshippers would not have fallen dead.

* * *

“We’re gathered here to discuss an emergency amongst the troops,” Padme says, “A sickness, that the men have nicknamed ‘Hollow’. It is not our highest priority, of course- Geonosian Mind Worms and Grey Death will always take priority, but the quarantine measures against Hollow will continue, and I would suggest that those of you who have taken to harassing the Jedi Master in charge of the _Perseverance_ over his choices to stop doing so.”

“What are the symptoms? I can pull up a graph of how it will spread, I believe that will make it easier for us to chart out which ships to pull back from which areas.”

That’s Senator Tavi, a relatively unconcerned but still professional look upon her face. Padme remembers that her brother is the Jedi on the _Perseverance_ , and wonders if she knows anything about Hollow.

“Have you heard from Master Tavi?”

“No, Lucky’s never been one to talk when he’s having a breakdown. Now, I’d like to hear the symptoms, please, if you don’t mind.”

Straight to the point. Padme’s always liked that about her fellow Senator, though she knows she’s rarely so honest to anyone outside of their little circle.

“It started from a clone squadron returning from a mission in the sub-arctic region of Terra, as far as I am aware. Respiratory, for the most part. There’s a significant association with liquid in the lungs as a secondary infection- specifically, frothy, bloody, according to Captain Rex of the 501st.The most distinguishing feature is that it turns the corpses blue.”

Padme turns back to Keziah, and jolts. The T’karian’s breathing is unsteady and shallow, and her eyes are thin, thin slits, and her claws dig into the chair and twitch, twitch, twitch.  
“Senator Tavi? Keziah?”

“Lock down everything _._ ”

“So you do know what Hollow is-”

“Influenza.”

Padme stares. There’s a half-dead look in her eye, like she’s remembering something that happened years ago. And then Padme remembers just how old her friend is, and wisely decides that she probably is.

“We can’t just lock down everything-”

“Get to work on a vaccine. None of the old ones are still good. And lock _everything_ down. That’s all you can do. It’ll run its course, of course. But it will cripple the Republic first.”

There’s no life in her voice. Padme feels chills run down her spine, but she knows they _can’t_ lock anything down, or at least, the Chancellor won’t listen to her when she tells him to. He says that the most valuable thing is the war.

Padme disagrees. Men are dying every day, but now they’re dying because the Republic is too selfish to stop the war effort for a year or more to keep a disease at bay, instead of dying in battle like Kamino and the Chancellor seem to want them to. She grips Senator Tavi’s hand, and ignores the claws digging into her flesh.

“We need to call a truce,” said Senator hisses, “War will be nothing compared to what it will wreak. Droid soldiers are nothing to the Naples Soldier. It does not care for who you are, what planet you are from. It will kill them all the same.”

Nobody will listen to her, not until it’s too late. Nobody will listen to either of them.

* * *

A little bird flies through the window, they say, a bird named Enza. It spreads like it has wings of its own, and nobody is safe. Terran blood samples are sent every day, to try to isolate antibodies, they say. T’karian blood is processed at their own facilities, they say as well (shapeshifters, some growl, afraid of others stealing their faces? The height of irony, truly-), and some argue that it should be _Terrans_ synthesizing the vaccine, if they have had it so often, or T’karians, if their people are still immune to it from the last time it had swept through their planet.

(T’karians, they say, are entirely too invested in Terran politics- it serves them right to be saddled with their illnesses, too.)

The worst of the losses, they say, is Kamino. Batch after batch of clone cadets is lost, they say- they are too similar, and too unexposed, no time to develop their own personal immunities like the older clones have, and so the virus cuts them down like a scythe through wheat. They are all the same, same, same, and to Enza, the great big greedy beast that she is, thousands of children all the same is the greatest kind of feast imaginable.

“She is a curse,” they say, “A blight. A sign, that this war should never have been.”

They say the same across the Republic, everywhere her claws touch. And it’s Enza. There’s rarely a place her claws don’t touch.

The holovids all say the same things- that it will be over soon, that it’s already beginning to die down, that there’s nothing to worry about and _would you continue buying war bonds and supporting the effort, please?_

“Got to protect our boys, out there. They’re dying, same as us.” a gruff old veteran says, and a younger woman snorts at the older.

“They’re dying because Old Man Palpatine wants his war machine to continue rolling. If they’d’ve just let them stay put in the first place, there’d be a half-dozen ships with sick soldiers on ‘em, not hundreds, and Enza dearest wouldn’t’ve sunk her claws so deep to us down here on land.”

“Watch your tongue, little miss,” the veteran growls loudly, then in a quieter voice, whispers, “You never know who’s listening.”

The younger woman freezes and nods.

“I’m Nivra, we meet at the back of the Tolto’s at seven in the evenings,” she says.

“Dalla, lovely to make your acquaintance. That would be now, wouldn’t it?” and Nivra checks her watch and hisses, dragging Dalla towards the back of the Tolto’s, where nobody else sits.

“I heard it was from Terra,” she says, “Heard that it was so new for them, that it’s not like TB, that any of us can get it-”

“More you than me,” Della laughs half-heartedly, “I heard it’s a young-killer. A young woman’s disease.”

“I heard that too,” Nivra says, dark eyes shining with fearful tears, “Do you know where we can get face-masks like the ones the guards wear?”

“Aye, I do,” Della says softly, “I do. They’re not much, but they’re better than nothing.”

* * *

She’s a quick enough killer, they say Enza is. Once you catch her, there’s not much hope for you, not until they can find something to prevent the deaths, to make them hold on just a little bit longer. It’s young children, adults in their prime, and the elderly at risk, and that’s one of the things that makes the Senate so _nervous._ That, well, and the knowledge that the Separatists have not issued a single demand as of late. Either the Separatists have gotten their own case of dear ol’ Hollow, or someone’s kept them from issuing demands while the Republic is in such a weakened state.

They hear of General Grievous’s death by influenza before long, and the pieces begin to fall into place. While the droid army cannot get sick like the Republic’s clones can, their leaders can easily fall prey to influenza, if they’re organic, that is. The knowledge that Grievous indeed was such is a bit of a shock to those who had met him over their years of service, but it’s far better than having to deal with them while more than half their men are dead or dying (that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but not much. Senator Tavi was not exaggerating when she’d said that they’d had zero immunity).

They hear of more than a few grief-worthy deaths, before it seems like Enza has loosened her grip. General Ferroda is the first of the Jedi Masters to succumb. Simm and Sev are quick to follow him. There are at least a half-dozen more Knights that fail to escape the clutches of Hollow before they pass, but no more Masters. It doesn’t stop the uneasiness in everyone’s stomach.

Padme understands, one morning, when she hears the news.

The Chancellor is dead.

It seems like a cruel twist of fate, she decides, that the vaccine is cleared for use less than a week later.

**Author's Note:**

> this is exclusively in existence because of the fact that there's not much pandemic stuff that's not zombies that I see on this site? and also i'm an infectious disease nerd. and terra is human home-planet bc i didn't want to deal with the logistics and you're not going to find permafrost in Coruscant.  
> This is probably going to be a one-shot, because I don't have any other content for it, not really.


End file.
